Blog Stats

Blogroll

A TV journalist who has reported extensively on varied matters, from politics, religion, breaking news events to natural disasters. This is an attempt to create a space for larger and deeper issues that don't make the headlines. At least not enough

Month: November 2016

A video report on the milk bank at Mumbai’s Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, popularly known as Sion Hospital. It gets donations from nearly 40 mothers every day and the milk benefits 3,000 babies every year. According to doctors, breastfeeding within the first hour of birth is one of the measures to fight infant mortality.

This report was aired on NDTV’s Every Life Counts campaign, supported by the Gates Foundation

Like this:

Inside a community centre at Mumbai’s Dharavi slum, Umair Khan teaches a group of young boys the difference between good and bad touch.

The 20-year-old is a community organiser with Sneha – Society for Nutrition Education and Health Action. He works with the NGO’s youth programme Ehsaas which, since 2013, has reached out to over 6,000 adolescents and youth between the ages of 15-24 in Mumbai’s slums.

As a young boy, Mr Khan experienced abuse. “The abusers were older boys in the neighbourhood. I was scared that I would be targeted again and it took me years before I spoke up. I don’t want anyone to suffer the way I did,” he tells NDTV.

At over 243 million, India has the largest adolescent population in the world, as per UNICEF’s 2011 report. However, down the decades, the focus of government programmes has been early marriage and early pregnancy, which is centered on young girls. Boys have been largely left out.

The National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-3 makes a compelling case for interventions among boys. Over 50% of boys between 15-24 years are in the labour force as per NFHS-3 data, while over 80% are married. One out of every five boys between 10-19 years is illiterate.

Over the years, there has been a growing realisation that there is an urgent need for specific interventions among young boys and men who too are victims of rigid gender norms. They struggle with notions of what constitutes a real man.

Being sexually active with various women is seen as a cultural sign of virility and the fallout is a lack of understanding of women’s rights.

Research has shown that men are also victims of many forms of violence, primarily at the hands of other men, and stand to gain from moving towards gender equality.

“Adolescent boys commit sexual crimes because there is a lack of appropriate orientation on sexuality and about matters like consent,” says Neeta Karaindikar, Associate Director, Ehsaas.

“Our films and advertisements show women in a very poor light and boys look at them as item numbers. We have to change this by working with the next generation, to make them see women as equal partners,” she adds.

Ehsaas does this through a mix of street plays and community meetings with adolescents and their families.

“Before I joined Ehsaas, I expected my sisters to do the household work,” says Shahid Shaikh, a community organiser.

“Now I know differently. We teach young boys to question stereotypes that allow boys to play outdoors but force girls into doing household chores. Gradually we are seeing a change,” he adds.

An impact report done six months after Ehsaas was launched in Dharavi has shown positive signs. Over 70% of boys and girls said that both genders should have equal freedom; nearly a 20% improvement.

Reaching out to boys comes with many challenges, as Pravin Katke, a coordinator with Equal Community Foundation points out. The foundation reaches out to boys between 14-17 years from low-income communities in the slums of Pune.

“In the areas that we work in, there is a high rate of school dropouts. There is also a tendency towards risky behaviour and addictions,” adds Mr Katke.

Through interactive sessions and games, the foundation tries to find out what is going on in the boys’ lives and the gender dynamics in the families.

“We have a curriculum where we talk about gender equality, violence, relationships, sexuality and adolescence,” says Mr Katke.

“We raise different situations and discuss their responses,” he adds.

To facilitate a larger change in the mindset, peer educators also meet with the parents every few weeks.

To prevent violence against women and build gender equality, one has to go back to the homes and communities where boys are raised, believes William Muir, co-founder, Equal Community Foundation.

“Boys across all environments are learning that successful men earn money and command respect through aggression and violence,” says Mr Muir.

“When you help them reflect on whether those messages are right or fair, they will start taking their own steps. The goal ultimately is to ensure that every boy is growing up in an environment where they are learning gender equality and in Pune, we are building that model,” adds Mr Muir.

Share this:

Like this:

After 25 years in salubrious California, Bonani and Prahlad Kakkar returned to Kolkata in the 1990s. “The Calcutta [they refuse to call it by the new name, Kolkata] we grew up in was a compact, organic city,” says Bonani, a former public health specialist. “Offices and homes were within walking distance and we had 625 parks in this city.”

They found the city of their childhood had changed dramatically. Diesel, a cheaper alternative to petrol, had made an entry, and there had been an explosion of cars, buses and auto-rickshaws on the roads. Out of deep anger and frustration, they decided to launch Public (People United for Better Living in Calcutta), a civic improvement organisation.

Down the decades, Kolkata’s chaos has been compounded with the city prioritising cars over public transport, something all Indian cities are guilty of. Traffic crawls on Kolkata’s roads at an average speed of 14 to 18 kilometres per hour, as against 22 kmph in the rest of India.

The slowdown has had an economic and environmental impact as well, something that Public is seeking to address by working with local authorities on awareness campaigns, such as encouraging citizens to lodge complaints about the worst polluters in the city with the Calcutta Police Traffic Department.

A study of 10 city roads found that just two hours of a traffic jam cumulatively costs commuters 74,000 rupees (£872). Kolkata residents breathe in air that has 3–5 times higher pollution than normal. The impact of this on public health has been studied by the Chittaranjan National Cancer Research Institute in Kolkata in many reports. One of them shows that more than 7 in 10 people suffer from respiratory diseases in Kolkata.

These factors have put Kolkata bottom of 100 world cities in the 2016 Arcadis Sustainable Cities Index, which ranks according to three dimensions – people, planet and profit.

Kolkata ranks last in planet and profit – the environment and economic indicators. On environment, it does badly on sanitation, green space and waste management. On the economic front, it rates poorly in ease of doing business, tourism, connectivity and transport, among others.

There is just 2mm of metro rail per inhabitant as against the average 14mm in our index Alasdair Cavalla, Centre for Economic and Business Research
“The parameters on the transport front are congestion ratings, kilometres of metro or light rail lines per inhabitant, and airport customer satisfaction,” says Alasdair Cavalla, senior economist at the Centre for Economic and Business Research, which provided the research for the index. “There is just 2mm of metro rail per inhabitant as against the average 14mm in our index. Kolkata’s airport does not rank in the top 100 airports by customer satisfaction.”

The hairy transport situation, experts say, is due to a lack of vision and integrity in transport planning down the decades.

Some of the policies adopted in order to ease road congestion are arbitrary. For example, two years ago, the police banned cycling on 174 main thoroughfares, when the national policy advocates the promotion of non-motorised transport.

There was outrage from green crusaders and unions of milk vendors and domestic workers, who filed a petition in the Kolkata High Court. The ban is still in place but only on 62 roads, mainly flyovers.

Kolkata needs to turn the politics of transport provision on its head, says Madhav Pai, India director for WRI Ross Centre for Sustainable Cities. “The majority of people walk and cycle, while the streets are designed for cars, and this has led to huge inequity. Kolkata needs to prioritise pedestrians, cyclists and buses. Instead it continues to invest in flyovers, expressways and more roads.”

Kolkata is exploring options to address its transport problems by sharing experiences through the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group that helps mega-cities of similar size and population density to connect. Kolkata was the first city in south Asia to join the network in 2015. Under C40, every mega city has to identify three top priorities it wants to work on. Kolkata has identified solid waste management, transport and air quality.

“Kolkata is the first city in India to look at fare integration, which means a single ticket for bus, metro and tram,” says Sanjay Sridhar, the C40 regional director for south and west Asia. “It is looking at rationalising bus routes to help improve efficiency and reduce fuel usage.” Intermodal connectivity options, using the existing system of ferries, the metro and trams, are also being looked at.

The next decade in India is about “showing citizens that change is possible’’, says Pai. “All these measures are examples of such change being attempted in Kolkata. To see large long-term change, these projects have to succeed and give hope for new innovative ideas to be implemented.”

Like this:

When her son Hassan was born at 28 weeks, Saba Khan was told the baby had slim chances of survival.

“He was very weak and was rushed to the paediatric ICU. He stayed there for nearly 20 days and the doctor told me it would be nothing short of a miracle if he made it alive,” says Ms Khan.

To make matters worse, Saba was very weak and could not nurse her baby. Babies, like Hassan, who are born premature, have higher chances of recovery if they are given mother’s milk.

Luckily for Saba, Hassan started recovering quickly as he given milk from the mother’s milk bank at Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital in Mumbai. From 1.2 kg at birth, Hassan gained up to 1.8 kg within three weeks and was declared out of danger.

“The milk saved his life,” says Saba. “He is gaining weight and now that I have recovered I am able to nurse him in addition to the milk from the bank.”

Started in 1989, the milk bank at Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, popularly known as Sion Hospital, is Asia’s first and largest such bank. It gets donations from nearly 40 mothers every day and the milk benefits 3,000 babies every year.

According to doctors, breastfeeding within the first hour of birth is one of the measures to fight infant mortality.

“Mother’s milk is a complete food. It is nutritionally optimal and protects the babies from different diseases,” says Dr Jayshree Mondkar, who heads the milk bank at Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital.

Most of the banked milk is given to the babies who are either underweight or to babies who are transferred from other hospitals with jaundice.

Dr Mondkar says there are many situations when the mothers are unable to nurse their infants after birth. In such a case, the milk from the bank is the next best option.

“We have as many as 14,000 deliveries in a week and mother’s milk is only an interim measure,” she says.

Before the milk is collected from the donor mothers, their blood reports are checked for any infections. Good care is taken to ensure that milk is collected hygienically, pasteurized and stored under the correct conditions. The banked milk can be stored for six months but is typically used up in 15 days.

“We tell the donor mothers why we are using the milk and how it is vital to keep another baby alive,” says Sister Sunanda Suryavanshi, a lactation management nurse at Sion Hospital.

“Even if there is some initial hesitation, all the mothers agree to donate when they hear that,” she adds.